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Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

#31

Post by Hoasi »

bserge wrote: post #26
ThePhysicist wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently there are a lot of high net-worth individuals that take pleasure in acquiring such cultural goods to hang them in their private studies or re-sell them. The Nebra Sky Disk ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebra_sky_disk ) was e.g. excavated by two "tomb raiders" who sold it on the black market, and only after the disk changed hands multiple times it was re-acquired by the federal government in a sting polic…

Sounds straight out of the movies. Black market for ancient/cultural artifacts that provide no practical benefits whatsoever to someone's life. Fascinating.

> Black market for ancient/cultural artifacts that provide no practical benefits whatsoever to someone's life. Fascinating.

No practical benefit but status; a lot of people, rich and poor, are chasing standing.

Re: Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

#32

Post by dagw »

yitchelle wrote: post #5
globular-toast wrote: post #4

It seems really odd to me to say they are "worth many millions of pounds". Are there really people out there willing to make a sacrifice of many millions just to own these notebooks? And does that mean they were on the market all along? I find that really difficult to believe. We used to say things like this are priceless.

I guess it is the same scenario with art pieces or similar products. EG, the Leonardo Da Vinci painting Salvator Mundi was sold for $450M back in 2017, where is the justification for this pricing?

Leonardo Da Vinci painting Salvator Mundi was sold for $450M back in 2017, where is the justification for this pricing?

That particular painting was by all accounts bought by (or at least for) the Abu Dhabi tourism ministry as advertising and a centerpiece for their new fancy art museum.

Although other claim it might also have been purchased for Mohammed bin Salman to go in his fancy new art museum.

Either way it seems to be two governments really really wanting a fancy new painting to show off in their fancy new art museum. The most generous interpretation would be that since the Mona Lisa directly and indirectly brings millions of tourism dollars to Paris every year having a famous Da Vinci painting of their own would bring millions of tourism dollars to their city as well.

Re: Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

#33

Post by mensetmanusman »

Newton’s notebooks have been digitized nicely:

https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-ADD-03996/55

As a research scientist, one thing that has definitely changed since the passage of FTF [0] in 2013 is the loss of a singular notebook of ideas and thoughts.

Most everything is digital now, and ideas are exchanged through dozens of media which don’t facilitate easy recording to a single physical source.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_to_file_and_first_to_i...

Re: Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

#34

Post by fakedang »

dagw wrote: post #32
yitchelle wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it is the same scenario with art pieces or similar products. EG, the Leonardo Da Vinci painting Salvator Mundi was sold for $450M back in 2017, where is the justification for this pricing?

Leonardo Da Vinci painting Salvator Mundi was sold for $450M back in 2017, where is the justification for this pricing? That particular painting was by all accounts bought by (or at least for) the Abu Dhabi tourism ministry as advertising and a centerpiece for their new fancy art museum. Although other claim it might also have been purchased for Mohammed bin Salman to go in his fancy new art museum. Either way it see…

And why shouldn't they?

Is it only the West that has an exclusive right over art?

If they can pay for it, and its future maintenance, and there's a willing seller, then why not? It's not like all of the Louvre's pieces were commissioned by some French king, and the same goes for MOMA or any of London's museums. In fact, let's be glad they're buying it and not looting it like the West did with a large portion of their exhibits.

Re: Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

#35

Post by rob74 »

webmobdev wrote: post #22

Hopefully it was all scanned and digitized?

That was the first questions in my mind too... of course the physical notebooks are also valuable, but the information contained within is the thing that's actually important for historians etc. Thankfully the question also occured to the BBC reporters:

> Although the notebooks have been digitised, Professor Secord says the scans can never replace the real thing.

Re: Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

#36

Post by toyg »

dagw wrote: post #28
bserge wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds straight out of the movies. Black market for ancient/cultural artifacts that provide no practical benefits whatsoever to someone's life. Fascinating.

provide no practical benefits whatsoever to someone's life. I guess it provides status and bragging rights within your social circle. When you and all your friends are rich enough to be able to buy basically anything that is legally for sale, owning stuff that your neighbor cannot also just go out and buy becomes the only interesting type of purchase left to make.

> no practical benefits

... except being a tax-free investment that will likely hold value forever (because it’s effectively unique) and is often easier to secure than more typical assets (because it’s hard to resell without very specific contacts).

Re: Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

#37

Post by MaxBarraclough »

Tomte wrote: post #19
OJFord wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The BBC frequently uses different titles in different places (home page, section page, article itself) and also changes them - the submission's title may well have reflected one of them at the time.

Also the tag is often different from the readable title in (the HN bookmarklet picks up the title tag). And that's throughout many news organizations. CNN does that all the time.

Somewhat related to this, the BBC have an annoying habit of using a photo in a thumbnail for an article, and not providing the full-size photo anywhere.

Re: Charles Darwin notebooks lost and assumed stolen

#38

Post by toyg »

air7 wrote: post #13
ChrisRR wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying these kind of collection pieces is tax efficient. So yes, people buy hugely expensive collector pieces all the time.

How so?

Things like buildings attract taxation year after year. A piece of art will not. It’s also easier to deal privately without reporting it.
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